How To Choose The Best Retractable Baby Gate For 2017

When your baby starts crawling, it can be a nightmare. You won't always be there to guard him from getting into vents or crawlspaces where he or she can get hurt or worse. Your life will be much easier when you get your hands on the best retractable baby gate.

Overview

Strategically placed gates can make your life easier when it comes to a runaway (or crawling) baby, especially if you're busy at work and you have to depend on a babysitter to take care of your child. It keeps your child safe like the fences on a (play) pen from dangers like stairs or going into rooms he's not supposed to be in.

A gate is also handy in keeping a pet and child separated. These safety gates are for children between 6 months to 2 years. You can buy these gates at different baby stores and trailers. You can specifically avail of retractable baby gate walmart, retractable baby gate babies r us, and retractable baby gate home depot if you so wish. They're everywhere. Once your baby is old enough to open the gate or climb over it, it ceases to be a safety device you can rely on.

Two Basic Types Of Gates

Via: retract-a-gate.com

Hardware-Mounted Gates:

These baby gates are bolded to framing within your home's walls. They're best used when there's a chance that your child could fall. This is a retractable baby gate for top of stairs for sure. It's solid enough to use at the top of the stairs, securing your baby from any potential nasty falls and keeping them safe even at multi-story homes with a staircase.

When properly installed, these hardware-mounted gates prove to be the more secure type of safety gate compared to its pressure-mounted counterpart because it's bolted to the walls themselves. This gate type is available as aluminum tubing, enamel-coated steel, or wood. It's installed by screwing the brackets to the framing behind the walls or through the door frame.

Pressure-Mounted Gates:

This retractable baby gate works by pressing on opposing walls and should be used when falling down stairs or some great height isn't a problem for your child. It's a wall that discourages your little one from exploring between rooms (like one that's been recently sprayed with pesticide) or climbing up your stairs (as opposed to falling down on them).

It's not secure enough to use atop stairs, so avoid using them that way. Stick to hardware-mounted gates instead, no matter how much you dislike drilling holes in your walls. Accordion-style gates with tempting footholds or horizontal slots are also not recommended for babies at the second storey and above of your home.

Recommendations For Gate Choice

Size is important when it comes to retractable baby gates. Their bigness should coincide with the bigness of the baby. These gates are available as either a retractable baby gate 80 inches or a retractable baby gate 60 inches. You can even get a retractable baby gate 96 inches if you have an extra big baby.

In regards to retractable baby gate pros and cons, here's the deal. No gate in existence is guaranteed childproof. You can never substitute careful supervision of a toddler or baby with a gate, so never leave your child unattended as much as possible.

5 Retractable Baby Gates For Review

The Stair Barrier - Wall-to-Bannister Signature Baby/Pet Gate is a gate you can put on the foot of your stairs to keep your toddler or your smaller pets from reaching the top and getting into a possible accident. It's available in two sizes and both sizes are 32-inches tall. It's able to roll to the side and out of the way when not needed (as expected of a retractable baby gate). It's also relatively easy to install when push comes to shove.

Installation involves minor drilling since it's still a hardware-mounted gate, but the installation kit is included with the whole package for your own convenience. It won't hurt babies or pets because it's made with heavy-duty polypropylene webbing, internal rigid plastic struts, dual-sized release buckles, and Class-1 upholstery-grade fabric. In my opinion, it has loads of upsides and few downsides. However, its fatal flaw is that it's expensive. It might not fit your budget, thus making you choose other (inferior) products that are about as good but not as costly as the Stair Barrier.

2. Wall Nanny (2 Pack - Made in USA) Indoor Baby Gate Wall Protector:

The Wall Nanny Baby Gate, on the other hand, is more than 10 times cheaper than the Stair Barrier. For something that costs so cheap, the pressure-mounted gate has unique attributes, such as the ability to work safely on bottom spindles. It can work in the stairway, doorway, and most openings. It can even serve as a viable retractable baby gate outdoor. It claims to fit almost anywhere that you want to keep your baby out.

As expected of a pressure-mounted baby gate accessory, it keeps your walls damage free by keeping them intact. No drilling required and it's easy to install. However, this also comes with the caveat of not being viable for sure in upstairs baby rooms that are near the top of the stairs. It's okay to use at the bottom of the stairs to keep baby from going up then falling, though. In regards to downsides, this cost-effective "Wall Nanny" isn't as tough as the Stair Barrier or any hardware-mounted gate, to be sure.

3. Wall Nanny (4 Pack - Made in USA) Indoor Baby Gate Wall Protector:

This is the 4-pack version of the abovementioned product. It therefore shares many of the benefits of the Wall Nanny 2 Pack. That means they both share the benefits of easy installation, keeping your walls free of drill damage, extreme versatility (it can fit most anywhere, or so they claim), and the ability to work safely on bottom spindles. It's also available as retractable baby gate white color (the gate itself is not included).

This is the more popular of the two products as far as online ratings and customer feedback is concerned. That's because it's only about $2 to $6 more expensive than the Wall Nanny 2 Pack for twice as many protectors. It shares flaws with Wall Nanny 2 Pack too, like the fact that you can't use it at the top of the stairs, you need to buy a separate pressure gate to make it work, and it also lacks installation directions, as though everything is simply that self-explanatory.

4. Munchkin Loft Aluminum Silver Baby Gate:

The Munchkin Lost Aluminum Silver Baby Gate is about $50 cheaper than the Stair Barrier. For something that costs a little less than the Stair Barrier, the hardware-mounted gate has one-of-a-kind features, such as superior durability thanks to its aluminum composition. It can work in the stairway, doorway, and most openings. It can even serve as a viable retractable baby gate outdoor. It claims to fit almost anywhere that you want to keep your baby out.

However, its toughness and heaviness comes with the caveat that it requires more wall destruction than Stair Barrier for its hinges. It also doubles as a pet fence, hence why it's not as soft or "baby-proof" as Stair Barrier. That's also its fatal flaw. Your baby could hurt itself with this fence, which was made harder so that small pets like dogs couldn't bite or claw their way out of it. However, if you want to separate baby from pet for each other's safety, this is the gate to get.

5. Internet's Best Baby/Pet Gate with Arched Top:

This is another hardware-mounted pet gate that doubles as a baby gate. This is yet another retractable baby gate you should buy if you have pets in the house and you wish to separate them from one another with a tougher gate that really does look like a gate (rather than a soft-padded stairwell wall as in the case of the Stair Barrier).

The durable 4-panel gate is slim and collapsible. It outdoes the Munchkin Loft baby gate in that it has an arched design, which isn't only pretty to look at but adds a bit of challenge for the baby who attempts to climb up the gate. It's also a little cheaper than its aluminum counterpart. Its downsides include the potential for injuring the baby (or the pet) that wants to get over it, like gnawing the bars and whatnot.

Conclusion

The Stair Barrier is the best retractable baby gate in my opinion because even though there are cheaper alternatives (the Wall Nanny series) or even more durable gates (Munchkin Loft and Internet's Best), it's still safer for baby and has padded protection that won't result in self-injury.

Just remember, as much as parents prefer pressure-mounted gates, they can't use them at the top of the stairs, the balcony, or anywhere that the baby can fall off of. However, hardware-mounted gates aren't perfect either, because they need to be screwed on the doorframe instead of plaster or drywall alone.

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